Unvaccinated Americans face job loss, no pay while seeking exemptions from state and local COVID mandates

close

Video

NYC residents fired due to COVID vaccine mandates ramp up fight to get their jobs back

Fox News correspondent Griff Jenkins reports on unvaccinated Americans fighting to get their jobs back after being fired due to COVID vaccine mandates.

Americans from coast to coast are still suffering from job loss for refusing to submit to sweeping vaccine mandates, despite President Biden's admission that the pandemic is "over."

Despite declaring the end of the COVID-19 pandemic during a "60 Minutes" interview on Sunday, President Biden did not address the thousands of Americans who are unemployed due federal and local vaccination mandates.  

New York City dropped their private employer vaccine mandate, ending one of the nation’s strictest COVID-19 regulations. However, public servants are still forced to comply. 

President Biden joined CBS News' Scott Pelley for an interview that aired on Sunday.  (Screenshot/CBSNews/60Minutes)

NYC sanitation worker, Curtis Cutler, was denied a religious exemption and fired despite being a deacon at his church. 

PENTAGON RUSHED TO DENY SERVICE MEMBERS' VACCINE RELIGIOUS EXEMPTION REQUESTS: REPORTS

"Please let us have our lives back. Put back together. Let us have a form of normalcy. We are called as Christians to pray for our leaders. So that's what we're doing. We’re going to continue to do that," Cutler said. 

New York City Mayor Eric Adams ended the vaccine mandate for private employees on Tuesday. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

In Los Angeles, 22-year veteran firefighter John Knox was put on leave without pay for refusing the shot and has gone nearly a year without a paycheck.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

"This is much bigger than my paycheck. This is much bigger than a pension. This is for the freedom and sovereignty of the citizens of this country," Knox said. 

People march across the Brooklyn Bridge to protest the Covid-19 vaccine mandate for municipal workers on October 25, 2021 in New York City. All city workers, excluding uniformed correction officers, are required to have at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by 5pm on October 29th.  (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)

Marcus Thornton represents a group of over 8,000 federal employees who argue federal and local government regulations violate human rights and religious freedoms.

"You know, it's ironic and really disturbing that in the last several in the last five years, I've received multiple awards for my work, fighting for and defending human rights, fighting for and defending religious freedom," said Thornton. 

"And now over the past year, the government has threatened me with termination, excluded me from the workforce, discriminated against me and subjected me to harassment, for standing up for those very principles, for human rights and for religious freedom and for the right to bodily autonomy and medical choice."